Woman Sues Blockbuster Over F-Book Ad Feature

According to a USA Today article, a woman last month sued Blockbuster, claiming that the company releasd personal information about her video and gaming rentals to Facebook through their Beacon system without her permission. Maybe this woman didnt't realize she could opt out of this function? While this case will likely not come to fruition in the courts, it does bring up some important ponts about the privacy implications of new media advertising.

Here's an interesting video about privacy concerns on Facebook and about how much your demographic information is worth to some new media advertisers.

Social Networking Sites: Integrated Marketing's Effects on Privacy

Shifting to new media advertising may have greater social implications, particularly with social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, that use integrated marketing in ways not necessarily positive for consumers. Facebook can now report on users’ purchases that take place outside of the Facebook network through a new advertising tool called Social Ads. Social Ads expose people’s purchases on Facebook that they did not know would be exposed. This type of exposure is potentially threatening to Facebook users because as their social networks expand to include employers, coworkers, and friends of friends etc, they do not wish for their personal information to be compromised on the Internet for the benefit of marketers. For example, a sorority girl might not want others to know that they ordered $50 worth of cookies and brownies from Insomnia Cookies at 3 a.m. And a professor might want to keep it secret that he purchased the latest Gossip Girl novel from Amazon.

Whereas Facebook allows personal information to make its way into social conversation online, MySpace uses “hyper-targeted banner” ads through high-tech software that allows advertisers to purchase ad space on MySpace. Marketers can then target users according to the interests they find on MySpace user profiles. These banners are less complex and less risky than Facebook’s Social Ads because users’ personal information is not broadcasted beyond the marketers for all to see.

Here MySpace founders discuss the way in which the online networking site customizes its ads for users based on their individual profiles.

Shields, M. (2007). Advertising to get more social. MediaWeek, 17(4), 4-5.

Logic+Emotion Blog

Riley, D. (2007). MySpace to announce self-serve hyper targeted advertising network. TechCrunch Weblog.

Is Big Brother Watching Us?!?

Would you be willing to let a phone company eavesdrop on your conversations if you got free service? Pudding Media, a startup based in San Jose, Calif., is listening in on your phone calls and placing ads on your internet screen based on what it hears. For example, a conversation about the New York Knicks might elicit ads about basketball tickets.

Ariel Maislos, chief executive of Pudding Media, says that young people don't care as much about privacy as they do about saving money.

“The trade-off of getting personalized content versus privacy is a concept that is accepted in the world,” he said.

Do you agree? The company just raised $8 million so they must be doing something right! Read this article and judge for yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24adcol.html

Double Click and Privacy

New media advertisers like DoubleClick that collect and distribute personal data from users to outside organizations must have comprehensive privacy policies.

Check theirs out:

http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/index.aspx

Breaking Up America

In Joseph Turow’s book, Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World, Turow takes an historical perspective to uncover the changes that have occurred in our new mediated environment. He explains that since the 1970’s, American advertisers have rejected the methods of mass-media marketing and instead have adopted a new target-market focus. While target marketing may be more effective, Turow posits that this new technique can actually exacerbate the existing divisions already present in American society. Turow states, “The US is experiencing a major shift in balance between society-making media and segment-making media. Segment-making media are those that encourage small slices of society to talk to themselves, while society-making media are those that have the potential to get all those segments to talk to each other. ” Now as advertisers are aggressively seeking to exploit the differences between consumers in order to create idealized targets, society is facing immense fragmentation. As Turow describes, media firms with an interest in target marketing are building “primary media communities” for their consumers.

These communities are build as the consumer is met with a media message that resonates with their personal values and beliefs, allows them to feel like the message is also reaching people similar to them and helps them identify their place in society. Turow gives the analogy of a gated community; in this new media environment, advertisers are literally creating communities of similar interests and lifestyles and gated them off from one another. While this practice may make niche markets feel more secure and comfortable, it is also greatly fragmenting contemporary American culture, affecting the way consumers relate to one another in a new media environment.

Turow, J (1997). Breaking up America: advertisers and the new media world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.